AMD has a new hair tech called TressFX and Tomb Raider will support it

Stunning.

Square Enix has announced that Tomb Raider will feature a new technology from AMD called the TressFX. The technology is great and produces realistic looking hair but it’s unclear how much processing power it requires.

For Tomb Raider, it is required that you have a AMD HD 7000 series card for optimal performance.

“Building on AMD’s previous work on Order Independent Transparency, this method makes use of Per-Pixel Linked-List data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage.

“DirectCompute is additionally utilized to perform the real-time physics simulations for TressFX Hair. This physics system treats each strand of hair as a chain with dozens of links, permitting for forces like gravity, wind and movement of the head to move and curl Lara’s hair in a realistic fashion.

“Further, collision detection is performed to ensure that strands do not pass through one another, or other solid surfaces such as Lara’s head, clothing and body. Finally, hair styles are simulated by gradually pulling the strands back towards their original shape after they have moved in response to an external force.”